CALCULATION OF THE TRANSPORT-PROPERTIES OF POLYATOMIC GASES FOR AN ARBITRARY NONEQUILIBRIUM FORM OF THE FLOW

A simple method is proposed for calculating the transport properties of polyatomic gases in the Navier-Stokes-Fourier approximation when there are arbitrary relationships between the frequencies of the elastic and the various inelastic collisions. It is shown that, without any loss of the accuracy, the problem of calculating the transport properties can be reduced to the well-known "limiting" problems for equilibrium, multitemperature and other types of flows. Uses of the well-known assumption regarding the independence of the cross-section of a certain process from the state of the degree of freedom of molecules with long relaxation times provides a further major simplification of the procedure for calculating the transport properties.